Dogfooding Markk – The better way to discover places

We celebrated our 2021 New Years in Rajasthan & this was the perfect time for me to #DogFood Markk. More than Markking places this blog talks about how our immediate network of friends trumps every other place discovery solution available today. By end of this blog you will wonder why do we even use our current sub-optimal ways! #PakkaPromise 🙂

Step 1 of any holiday starts with – Where? This was easy based on 2 things, covid rules meant international travel was out and second Ashish Fafadia’s Rajasthan stories made us immediately pick this state.

Based on his list below we could easily plan exact number of days & detailed itinerary.

9 places under all cities and things to do plan in Rajasthan


First stop was Jaipur and here is how we picked an amazing place for dinner. Thanks to Markker Nisheta. Check this tweet below

Next stop Bikaner – got help from Prashant a.k.a pacificleo with his restaurant pick – Here is our experience at Gallop restaurant (dubbed as one of the most happening spots there 🙂

And Prashant was actually in Bikaner then!


We left for Jaisalmer and loved Markker Atul Sahu’s pics for Gadisar Lake. But we actually missed spotting Kaushal’s tips for Gadisar lake & could have had a better experience! 😩

Tips from friends is what we ask for in real world and Kaushal had a great tip for Gadisar lake! Don’t miss it on your trip there.

In Udaipur we picked this amazing restaurant for lunch based on Jaynish’s Markks – & did we love it!

A lovely restaurant right by the lake & superb food. 

No more Google, scroll by 100s of 4* rated places, read non relevant reviews. Trust your network first

Next stop Sahelion ki Bari based on Nikita’s Markks – each time simply drop a pin, select my friends on Markks and pick a place nearby.

#BeforeMarkkLife – Google, get 1000 links, argue if its good, read random reviews & finally depend on luck

#WithMarkk Find friends suggestions in one tap 😎

Make no mistake – every place listed above would be found in travel guides, blogs etc – but instead of spending hours reading, sorting and filtering from non-trusted/paid sources I simply picked my friends recommendations. Nothing beats this. You trust your friends the most.

And all this is at a stage when we are focusing only on creators & are yet to open up discovery in a meaning way on Markk!

Saying it again – if you care for your places #Markkit – In comings days you will wonder why do we even use our current sub-optimal ways!

Should every story expire?

Snap introduced ephemeral messages to the world. Every social company copied/adapted to this model.

But did anybody ask – Should every story expire in 24hrs? We did at Markk – & this seemingly trivial product tweak is bringing in 1000s of users.

The idea behind disappearing stories was to ensure

1) its fun (& not stressful) to share every moment of life ‘with friends’
2) you dont worry much about things staying on internet forever (especially relevant in today cancel culture world)

This works beautifully for Snap which is primarily a closed group friend network.

The other UX that everybody discovered was the great full screen auto play experience of stories. A chronological way to share life moments. Great story telling. This for me is one of the key defining UX changes in social that Snap enabled.

As Instagram, Linkedin, Whatsapp etc introduced this – there was massive adoption. BUT People now shared everything in stories – Many aspects which could very well stay & benefit their network.

Why did this happen?

  1. Great viewing experience (story telling)
  2. Easy UX to post
  3. Higher chances of getting noticed (beat the feed clutter & algorithms of social media)

    But this means a lot of useful information gets lost in 24hrs. You thinking why not do a post (which stays forever)?

    The Instagram post (that you see in your feed) is probably one of the worst UX!
  • No full screen (seriously!?)
  • Does not auto play – Carousel in todays world!?
  • Only one caption for all pics – Which apart from getting lost in feed, completely discourages story telling

    I trust my network the most & always pick places they recommend. I see friends daily sharing so many amazing places but never find them when I need them. Even if they do add to post (on Instagram), or tweet it, it is impossible to find among all the clutter of selfies, family pics, cats, bdays, etc.

    This key insight led us to do two things at Markk
  1. Let the story view be the primary form of consumption.
  2. Which in turn is the best story telling experience for creators
  3. Place only focus removes the pressure of these stories not disappearing

    And our Markker’s love it!

Not only does our life revolve around places but we also have opinions on places we visit.

Markk beautifully enables this emotion. Come join me & 1000s of others and discover the beautiful way of sharing your place stories

Places & Internet – Evolution of reviews & ratings and the future of local discovery

Our lives revolve around places. Every day its your home, office, neighboring shops, malls, parks or dining out and when you traveling its the airports, train stations new cities/countries, tourist attractions etc.

This is how place information over internet has evolved over time.

Pre-internet era (before 1990) – Yellowpages / books / guides.

1990- 2000 – This was the era when yellow pages went online. Information available remained the same but now searchable (a BIG change).

Amazon allowed customers to leave reviews of products (in 1995). Letting consumers rant about products in public was a recipe for retail suicide, critics thought 🙂

Trivia: Elon Musk (& his brother) founded Zip2 in 1995 & later was acquired by Compaq in 1999 for $305 million

2000 – Online reviews / ratings started. Epinions, RateitAll & Deja were the early movers. People could now leave feedback for almost any kind of business, product or place. This fundamentally changed the dynamics of how places were discovered and consumed. Tripadvisor was founded.

2007 to 2019 – The period with maximum action in this space

  1. Yelp takes off with millions of reviews.
  2. Foursquare is founded and introduces concept of social check-ins
  3. TripAdvisor is firmly the largest travel site in the world. With close to half a billion monthly vists and very profitable!
  4. In 2012, Facebook comes from nowhere and has the largest quantity of reviews, only to be beaten by Google in 2017 as Google introduces smart notifications and tweaks their search algorithm to give more weightage to business ranks.
Comparison of local review sites

If you look at the last 20 years, places and their information has largely remained unchanged
– Reviews & ratings are more or less same. Mainly text first & then photo/video and primarily opinions of the past.
– Information you get is the same – phone numbers, location, working hours etc
– Social networks have added layer of recommendations directly from your friends.

The future of places on internet – consumption and creation 

Next 2 decades will redefine how we discover places, share our feedback and build new forms of engagements. I define them broadly under

1. Live Information
2. Augmented Reality
3. Real-time communication
4. Ephemeral Communities

  1. Live information – A new layer of information will be created on the web – live information of places with context. 
    – Similar to what twitter does for topics today (follow any event in the world via certain hashtags), we will have a network that will allow you to tap any place/locality in the world.
    – Visualize in realtime what is happening and also have context with engagements via audio commentary, augmented reality, comments, polling etc.

An example of how we do this at Markk

2. Augmented reality – Reviews/ratings in future will involve people seeing AR models of places and creating their own versions of it and then sharing their experiences as it happens.
Example people will visualize a Taj Mahal or a shopping street in AR, build their own version of the place, share snippets of that as stories and a community that can build on top of this.

What Snap is building with their local lenses and Landmarkers feature is very interesting



3. Real-time communication – As chat between friends is instantaneous, our places experiences will also become live. Before going to the park I will not only quickly visualize the place (for crowd, seating, rush etc) but also engage with the people there on the go.
Businesses will have a more robust live presence. Today businesses struggle with multiple platforms, devices and hence majority remain inactive. A real-time model will help them realize immediate impact and return on investment.

4. Ephemeral communities around places –

A network of places that will create short duration social bubbles. Connect with people who happen to share your likes of a place at that moment (but are otherwise strangers).

Example, connect with people at your boarding gate, engage with people who are or plan to be at the same bar, at sports stadiums and so on.

A network of places that connects people will be an interesting aspect of consumer internet in coming years and will redefine local discovery.

Data sources ShopperApproved ChatMeter SearchEngineLand HBR

Doing stock options right

PJ tweeted this excellent summary & this topic needs more details.

Best practices in ESOPs in India

This post covers:

1. How founders need to look at ESOPs
2. How we handle ESOPs at Markk
3. What founders should do if they make a promise & do not have the paper work in place (when an exit event happens)

  1. Founders and ESOPs

One of the biggest motivations for me as a founder is when people who trust you & your vision early days make money. A lot of money. This includes all shareholders like investors, but employees come first.

As a founder you need to realize that wealth creation happens best when you take everybody along. It is also in your selfish interest to let people have ownership and create a win-win.

Recommendation: Have a 10% pool for ESOPs (to start with)

2. How we handle this at Markk

A benchmark against PJ’s table above

TopicMarkk PolicyScore
Who is eligible for ESOPsEverybodyOutstanding ✅
Vesting period4 yearsOutstanding ✅
Vesting schedule10+20+30+40Average 🆗
Allotment isTime LinkedOutstanding ✅
Vesting starts fromJoining dateOutstanding ✅
Top-up of ESOPsNot definedAverage 🆗
Vesting on leavingVested OptionsOutstanding ✅
Vesting on ExitAcceleratedOutstanding ✅
Sale of vested stocksPermission requiredAverage 🆗
Sale of ESOPsFacilitatedOutstanding ✅
BuybackNot defined–
Exercise PriceReasonable PriceGood 👍
Holding period7yrsGood 👍
ESOPs policy at Markk

There are 3 additional sections that need to be considered

Death / DisabilityAutomatically vested to heir / employee
Applicable to freelancersYes! ✅
Cash out Vs StocksYes! ✅

Vesting Schedule:
A equal vesting schedule should not be done in early stages of your startup. Startups are tough and take years before things add up, and majority of people will leave before things start looking good.

If you keep equal vesting each year you do not reward patience and also end up probably losing lot of equity for people who are not willing to play the long game.

Top-up of ESOPs:
Though we have already topped ESOPs for most employees (either based on performance or in lieu of salary), this is something we will define.

Sale of vested stocks:
A no permission situation works well once the startup is big and secondary sale is an option. Else, permission should be needed to ensure shares are not sold to competition or people you do not want to work with.

Buyback:
Again works after a certain stage of maturity of the company. We do not have this defined, but I will be more than happy to facilitate this when we are there.

Holding period:
Only reason we do not have an infinite holding period is this makes calculation of outstanding options difficult and also sometimes tracking of people (who have left years ago) and getting them to exercise can get painful!

Available for Freelancers / Contractors:
Sometimes you would like to engage with high quality talent (who are not open to full time employment), by ensuring your stock plan can reward such people is very important. Why?
a) You will not be afford this talent otherwise
b) Such talent will usually also want to own stocks.

Cash out vs stocks:
Stock rewards are delayed monetary gratification. Yes it also means you are an ‘owner’ but this ownership value will invariably be very small.

What matters finally is how much money can you make from that paper you hold. Based on this we have an option to directly pay cash to people (for the stocks they hold) or actually get them to own stocks. This works well especially for people who have left your organization and saves you on lot of paperwork otherwise needed for ‘shareholders’

Founder makes a promise but does not do the paperwork

There are many situations where the paperwork genuinely gets delayed (or forgotten by the founder).
– You are more focused on executing and surviving
– Paying lawyers and getting this documented is not on your mind
– You promise ‘x %’ to employees (with promise to do paperwork later)

– Then one day some outside investment happens or there is an exit event. There is no paperwork in place!
– The ‘x%’ promise is at best on email or usually as a conversation between the founder and the employee.

What should a founder do in such a situation?
Simple answer: Always honor your word. Apart from karma which will one day come to bite you, you also need to remember that as a founder the biggest credibility you have is your integrity.

Personal experience of how we handled this in TastyKhana:

This was my first startup and I had no clue how ESOPs work. As mentioned above I promised early employees stocks and never bothered to do the paperwork. (In hindsight, a very bad example)

Long story short, at our exit event we had no ESOPs in place and only promises that we had made.

Sheldon & I paid money (from our share sale) personally & also ensured we adjusted for the tax loss they had (from a share sale vs direct income)

I personally know many founders (with much celebrated exits) who have played foul on promises and pushed this to board, investors etc. But it is simply greed getting better of them.

A standard 30day notice period for all

One of my pet peeves has been the ridiculous notice periods that some companies in India have. A regular software engineer can have a 3months notice period! I mean how can any (small/medium) business plan a resource to join 3 months later!? And I am not even discussing the other issues such as no shows, multiple offers etc.

Hiring policies now at Markk:

  • We will NOT hire anybody who has more than a 30 day notice period at their current job. We will simply not interview/shortlist such candidates.
  • Logical next step is, internally we will NOT have a notice period greater than 30days for any staff (even senior staff)

Notice period is a waste of time:

  • By and large notice periods are a waste of time for both the employer and the employee.
  • The so called knowledge transfer and handover should ideally be part of your regular process of managing a team member.
  • If you document all work done and set processes from day 1, there is no need for long notice periods.
  • I mean if Instagram founders could move out in 15days (a standard in USA), I am sure we all can plan better!

We want to move to 15 day notice period for all:

  • Ideally, like we have in our USA operations, we would like to have a 15 day hiring and handover period for all, but given the nature of other industries and their practices, unfortunately we cannot do this as of today.
  • But what we shall do is if an employee requests early departure & if everything is in order we will let go with all papers and also pay the entire notice period amount in their settlement.

Next goal: Pay the full and final settlement dues BEFORE last date of the employee

  • Another one of our favorites is make our employees follow up and wait for their dues!
  • Again I don’t see why this is needed & internally teams can very well do all leaves, reimbursements, dues etc calculations in the notice period itself.
  • In this FY we will have this setup to ensure you get paid before your last day with us. Read more on our payment policies

Can we in the startup community join hands to build this as a mutual benefit to the entire ecosystem?

Other founders who are doing this or ready to adopt this approach?

Paying on time & a 15day pay cycle

Holding money to your creditors is something we (in India) take pride in! We have a parallel industry in recovery agents, bill discounting, cash collectors etc

So many startups and businesses die, simply because they cannot enforce a payment that was legally due to them. This mindset to not pay on time is a vicious cycle that impacts everybody in the system & has a huge impact on cost of doing business.

Profitable on paper, but struggle to meet expenses each month.

We at Markk want to change the status quo & this is how we make it better for employees & vendors to work with us.

Paying people on time:

For employees:

In May last year, when we begun operation in USA, we realized that it is a standard practice in California (and entire country) to pay people every 2 weeks.

People have money more frequently and hence spending remains kind of constant all month long. There is also a better sense of security* among staff.

A simple but useful practice, which I wonder, why is not the norm in India.

We introduced the same for our team in India and I think it works perfectly! We as founders are on our toes knowing that we need to meet this obligation every 15 days (hence be more prudent on cash flow). Similarly the team now gets paid every 2 weeks & hence have better cash flow all month long!

Some hiccups that we had to adapt:

  • TDS payments on salary – You pay only once a month to IT. Hence we adjusted tax equally over both the pay cycles but pay IT in the following month.
  • Installments worry – Some members were worried that their monthly installments are due on week 1 of each month & what if they end up spending more before that! (some automatic financial prudence kicked in!)
  • Pay slips – Do you issue one or 2 pay slips 🙂 ? One: Other companies, banks etc still recognize a monthly payslip!

For vendors:

All payments will be cleared within 21days from date of billing, subject to some exceptions. We would like to bring this down further to 10days.

I take pride in the fact that in last 13yrs of doing business in India, we have NOT defaulted even once with any vendor. Every bill that was raised to us (across my 3 startups) was settled. If we didn’t have the money we either didn’t commit or requested time with interest if any, but never went back on payment commitment made.

Things we will take up next:

  • Doing the full & final settlement of payment for employees who leave our services BEFORE their last date.

Any other ideas / suggestions / best practices that you follow & think we can implement to help improve the eco-system?

*In California, as per the law, you need to declare bankruptcy if you cannot meet payroll.

O1 Visa for an Indian Citizen

I got my O1 Visa approved in Feb 2020 and when I tweeted this, I got close to 100+ requests to know more about the process etc.

And this actually got me started with my blog!

Firstly what is an O1 Visa?

This is a visa for Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement. The official description and all the rules related to this visa category as per USCIS can be found here.

Under O1 there are 2 categories

  • O-1A:  Individuals with an extraordinary ability in the sciences, education, business, or athletics. This is what I qualify under.
  • O-1B: Individuals with an extraordinary ability in the arts or extraordinary achievement in motion picture or television industry.

When I first heard the term ‘extraordinary ability’, my reaction was – “Ok I definitely won’t get this, what are my other options”. If you are thinking on similar lines, it is not as difficult as you may think.

The basic idea of this visa is for USA to encourage businessmen & artists to help create employment & further help their economy. To prove this you need to establish certain credentials of having done this in past.

This blog covers only what I know about the O-1A visa and its application process.

How to get started

These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself:

  1. Have you built a company of significant value (value can be showcased via revenues, profit, fund raise, acquisition or maybe IPO)?
  2. Have you been invited at events of repute to speak and address an audience?
  3. Have you been a judge for competitions or events of repute?
  4. Do you have any US patents or inventions that you can claim?
  5. Do you have significant press coverage for your achievements?
  6. Have you published papers in international or other famous journals?
  7. Do you a command a very high salary in your domain (top 1% percent)?
  8. Member of some organization that restricts membership based on certain high achievements?

Now though these may seem daunting, as founder who has raised venture capital (multiple times), successfully sold a startup (and hence happened to get press coverage) I managed to check many boxes.

To make it easy for you, I have attached my application form that describes my abilities and achievements. You can refer the sheet here – Note the idea is not to check all boxes, but as the document mentions you must have at least 3 and more the better.

Also one of the most important factors is reference letters that you can produce to support your case (details again in document shared above)

Lawyers and their role

  1. You need to connect with a lawyer that will present your case to USCIS (I worked with Global Talent Immigration Law Group )
  2. The law firm does an initial assessment and lets you know upfront what they think are your chances. (A good law firm will not accept your application if they think your profile is not strong enough for this visa class)
  3. They do bulk of the paperwork from here. They prepare your entire case file and also prepare the letters for your references.
  4. A critical aspect that the lawyers handle is writing excellent reference letters that describe your achievements and work. When I read the final copies, it made me think is this really me 😀 (and this is what you pay for!)

The actual process

  1. The lawyers in USA take anywhere from 30-45days (minimum) to prepare your file.
  2. Once your file is ready, you review + sign same and share all the original reference letters.
  3. You can submit your application under premium processing or regular process.
  4. Premium process is recommended as it has a guaranteed timeline (~15days) for approval or rejection, where as the regular process can take 2-3 months or more. Premium processing expectedly costs more.
  5. What I am told is that applications are usually not rejected, they usually ask your for more evidence / papers before rejecting/approving your visa.
  6. Once you receive your approval, you need to apply for finger printing and VISA interview at your local consulate (in Mumbai, India for me).
  7. If the visa officer at your local consulate approves your case, you get the VISA stamped and then done! The interview at the local consulate is usually a formality, they ask you basic questions about your case and verify what you have stated is true.

Other points and tips

  • What is the validity of the visa and does your immediate family also get this visa?
    Visa is issued for a maximum period of 3yrs & your family (spouse + kids) can apply for dependent visa under same class. They cannot work in USA with this visa.
  • Tips to select a good law firm to represent your case
    I was told it is recommended to work with a local (American law firm) vs Indian origin law firms as they understand the process better. I dont know if this is true, as I didn’t try this option. Second, as I mentioned above a firm will let you know upfront what they think about your profile.
  • How is O1 visa different from your regular B1/B2 visa?
    O1 is essentially a work visa. You can be legally employed and draw salary in USA. You and your family get social security and other local employment benefits. Employment under B1/B2 is illegal.
  • Does this help you get green card faster?
    I have been told so, but not aware of this yet. Most people apply for extensions (which I am told is given, if you have worked and contributed as mentioned in your application in your previous 3yrs). I personally dont intend to apply or stay long term in USA.
  • How much does it cost?
    Fees vary by law firms. For me it costed a total of $8000 (including the premium processing fee and application fee paid to USCIS)
  • Do I need to show employment offer from a US company?
    Yes, since you intend to work there. Since I plan to work in Los Angeles, I got my USA company to offer me an employment contract (approved by board) and I will work under those employment terms in USA.
  • What other visa options did I explore?
    L1 and H1B. L1 I was told is a company transfer visa and usually works well for mid sized companies (50+). H1B is expensive (company sponsored) and also via lucky draw. Hence given the timeline and nature of our startup, O1 was the best fit.

Finally please note this is NOT a legal advice. All information provided above is for reference only and should not be taken as formal legal advice. Pls do NOT ask me questions about your profile, it is best left to a lawyer to review the same.

Work from home rules – No rules

We at Markk started working from home from March 16, 2020 and India officially went under lockdown from March 24th.

Initially we were not sure how we set the tone for co-ordination among teams and to manage an all remote team. But we decided to keep it simple. Here is how we have been working for last 40days

  1. Have 2 daily 15/20mins checks in with entire team. Morning and evening.
  2. Goals for the week are planned as per current sprint
  3. We dont ask teams to be online during fixed hours. They can connect what works for them.
  4. No phone calls or email follow ups asking for instant responses.
  5. If you need something urgently call the other person.
  6. Slack responses need not be instant (we saw many startups set rules that people need to reply within x mins)
  7. You may be cooking, walking your dog, taking an afternoon nap, spending time with family etc…work at hours that suit you. Delivery of planned work is all that matters.
32 Working from Home Tips You Can Do Right Now (Updated)
32 Working from Home Tips You Can Do Right Now

For me, the biggest distraction has been the non-stop webinar requests that have been setup. Have personally cut back on almost all video calls, and I am back to regular phone calls and only when needed.

Many people think that WFH is easy and more relaxing, but I feel this can easily get overwhelming if you dont plan your day well. The lockdown is mentally taxing with family, home, kids, work etc to be managed every single day with no ‘breaks/vacations’ on weekends.

As a founder or a startup employee the only thing that should matter to you is execution, a webinar or advice won’t help you much here.

For for small startups (<30ppl), dont over complicate. Trust your team & give them the freedom to execute.

Who is Shachin Bharadwaj?

An entrepreneur who loves consumer internet.

I was born in Bangalore & my native language is Kannada. I grew up and studied in Pune.

  1. A Bishopite – 1998 batch
  2. Fergusson College – Year 2000
  3. Maharashtra Institute of Technology (Pune University) – 2004 (Computer Engineering)

Post engineering I joined S1 Inc (now ACI) as a software engineer, moved out in April 2005 after internal politics got better of me. Later joined Synygy Inc (now Optymyze) as a quality assurance engineer. I moved out in Oct 2007 to start my entrepreneurial journey.

TastyKhana – 2007 to 2015 (India)

One of India’s first online food ordering companies. Pioneers of owning the last mile of delivery. In 7 years we build TK as one of India’s largest food ordering companies, spanning across 170 cities, partnering with 10K+ restaurants with a team of close to 100 people headquartered in Pune.

From bootstrapping to facing near bankruptcy and then raising $5million we survived the roller coaster ride at TastyKhana. In 2014 FoodPanda acquired TK in a multi-million $ deal.

Had a brief stint as FoodPanda India MD for a few months post the acquisition.

Sminq – 2015 – 2019 (India)

Online queue management app for doctors in India. We served more than 100,000 patients each month and saved 100yrs of waiting time for patients. Sminq was acquired in 2019 by one of Indias largest e-pharmacy players (details remain confidential)

Markk – 2021 onwards

A social network to share your place stories. Built for a niche community of users who love their places & share these experiences.

Social Media

Markk : @shachinb

Twitter : @shachinb